Tax at source in France: personal, individual or default rate, and how to change it

Every month, your employer holds back part of your salary for income tax and passes it on to the tax office: that is tax withheld at source. The percentage held back, though, is not decided by the employer. This guide explains the three possible rates, where to read yours, what the default grid does to a salary, and how to change it when your situation changes.

The three possible rates

• The personal rate (or household rate): worked out by the tax office from your last return, it reflects the household's total income, the number of parts and deductible expenses. It is the rate of employees taxed on their own (single people, unmarried partners); for a married or civil-partnered couple, this rate shared by both now only applies if they opt for it.
• The individual rate: in a married or civil-partnered couple, each partner gets a rate that reflects their own income. Since September 2025, it has been the rate applied to couples by default. The household's tax is the same; only its split between the two payslips changes, in favour of the lower earner.
• The default rate (or non-personalised rate): a grid published by the tax office, applied when the employer does not know your rate (if you have never filed a tax return yet, for example) or when you have refused to have it sent. It depends only on the salary paid, without taking your family situation into account.

Where to read your rate

1. On your payslip, at the bottom: three lines give the base (taxable net pay), the rate, and the amount withheld. The guide to your payslip explained places them among the other lines.
2. On your tax notice, which states the rate that will apply from September, and any instalments on your other income.
3. In your personal account on impots.gouv.fr, under “Gérer mon prélèvement à la source” (manage my tax at source): the current rate, its history, and every option described below.

The default-rate grid

The grid applies to monthly taxable net pay, not to gross or take-home pay. An extract of the grid in force since 1 May 2026 in mainland France (source: bofip.impots.gouv.fr); the full grid is shown on the net salary after tax tool.

Two useful details. The grid already includes the 10% allowance for professional expenses: do not deduct it a second time. And for a short contract (a fixed-term contract or assignment of two months at most), the employer first takes an allowance of €766 off the base before reading the grid, which avoids over-taxing a salary that will not last the whole year.

What it does to a salary

Take €3,000 gross a month, non-cadre, full time. The site's engine works out take-home pay of €2,353 and taxable net pay of €2,459, which falls in the “from €2,315 to under €2,738” band. The default rate is therefore 5.3%, i.e. €130 withheld every month and net pay after tax of €2,223.

With a personal rate, the mechanism is the same, only the value changes. For that same gross:

The guide on net pay after tax follows the whole path from gross to the bank transfer, including the household scale.

How to change your rate

Everything happens in your personal account on impots.gouv.fr, under “Gérer mon prélèvement à la source”. Four actions are possible, depending on what has changed in your life.

1. Declare a change of situation: marriage, civil partnership, birth or adoption, divorce or the end of a civil partnership, death of your partner. The tax office recalculates your rate with the new number of parts, without waiting for the next return. Do it promptly: the law sets a deadline for reporting it, given on the service-public.fr page cited at the bottom.
2. Update your income: a drop (part time, unemployment, a partner leaving a job) lets you ask for a lower rate, provided the amount withheld drops by a minimum margin set by law; a rise (pay rise, new job) lets you raise your rate to avoid a large balance the following summer. You estimate the year's income, the tax office recalculates.
3. Choose between the individual and the household rate, if you are married or in a civil partnership: the individual rate applies by default, and each partner can switch back to the household rate for their own income, online or in their tax return. The couple's total tax does not change.
4. Refuse to have your rate sent to your employer: they will then apply the default-rate grid and, if that rate is lower than your real one, you will pay the difference to the tax office every month. Useful if you do not want your employer to guess your other income; pointless if your personal rate is already low.

In every case, the new rate is sent to your employer by the tax office, never by you, and it may not show up on the very next payslip: check the rate line on the payslips of the following months.

The adjustment, the following year

Withholding is only a down payment. In the spring, your return (pre-filled with the taxable net amounts sent by your employer) sets the tax actually due; in the summer, the notice compares that amount with the total withheld and ends with a refund or a balance to pay. That is also when tax reductions and credits are settled. Hence the point of keeping a rate close to reality: too low, and you catch up in one go; too high, and you lend money to the State interest-free. To plan ahead, the net salary after tax tool works out the yearly tax for your household, and you can compare its effective rate with the one on your payslip.

And if the real question is whether your salary is the right one, start there: what your CV is worth on the market, in gross annual terms, before looking at what tax will do to it.